


like real people do

by moonfishes



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Kissing, M/M, set after the filming of that pepero game...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 13:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30106692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonfishes/pseuds/moonfishes
Summary: “I,” said Donghyuck, “decided it for myself. I deserve to be kissed; so do you. And if you kiss me, then, I could kiss you too. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”“To be—deserved?”“To be kissed. Everyone should be kissed if they want it. And I want it.”“How do you know that I want it?”Donghyuck was blinking up at him. His eyes, wide-open, were speckled with light. They shone into him with the force of something magnetic, or perhaps magical. Witchcraft, Johnny supposed. “Do you not?”
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 6
Kudos: 75





	like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> I think I started this 50% out of spite and then it became this... thing. Warning: this is a Style. I do not know exactly what happened but something happened! Thank you to [punkrightnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrightnow/pseuds/punkrightnow) for being a gem and helping me thoroughly comb through this piece and work through a breakdown over how Extra I should make the ending, I don't think I could have uploaded this without her! We were also both vetoed by another friend in terms of adding extra drama so thank you to that friend for that, because trust me, without that, this tiny fic would be a whole different thing.
> 
> Enjoy some Johnhyuck kissing <3

Through the dim light Johnny saw a nest of blankets. They were checkered, polka-dotted, ragged thin from countless laundry cycles—yet they were piled atop Donghyuck’s bed like a treasure trove of blanket gold. Deep within it was the most expensive of the gold: Lee Donghyuck himself, locked in a trove of self-inflicted silence. 

It was just past midnight; the clock had turned its hands barely a minute ago. To have Donghyuck so reticent at this hour meant that he was either sick or upset, and from the way he had ignored Johnny ever since they had finished filming, it was the latter. And that was what left Johnny bewildered: what could he have done to upset Donghyuck like this? He could do nothing but approach the nest; yet when he approached, the silence, already ever-prominent, somehow grew louder… and suddenly, there was a hitching sound, followed by a loud gulping breath, before the room was engulfed in silence again. 

“Hyuck,” he asked, “were you holding your breath?”

“N-no…” came the muffled reply.

“I know you’re lying. Why were you doing it?”

“Don’t want to talk to you.”

“Why not?”

“I told you, I don’t want to talk. Go away!”

Exasperated, Johnny prodded at the lump. “You have to live with me for another while, you know. We’re going to have to put up with each other. If you tell me why and it’s because I did something wrong, we can resolve it quickly and I’ll never do it again.”

“You didn’t,” said the lump, still muffled. “It’s not your fault. I just don’t want to talk to you.”

“Hyuck,” he tried again. “Come on. Tell me. I promise I won’t react badly.”

“…Promise?”

“Of course, Hyuckie. Pinky promise.”

The lump shifted. Donghyuck emerged, wearing a frown on his face. “Pinky promise? You treat me as though I’m a child, hyung,” he complained. 

“I don’t,” said Johnny. “You were just in a heap of somebody’s blankets just now. How else was I supposed to get you out?”

“Just drag me out!”

“And have you kicking and screaming in my face?” Johnny raised his eyebrows. “No thank you.”

Donghyuck’s frown deepened. “I wouldn’t have, you know. I wouldn’t have kicked or screamed…”

“Well…” said Johnny. He was too tired for this conversation, but determined to resolve it before they both went to sleep; Donghyuck was a veritable master of holding grudges and Johnny refused to let that happen to him. “I mean, not that I would have known, you know. And what else could I have done, truly? Tickled you? Kissed you? You’d kill me if I did those things. Anyways—tell me. What’s going on, Hyuck?”

“I wouldn’t have,” said Donghyuck, still reticent. “If you did—I wouldn’t have.”

“Hello, am I speaking to the same person right now? Lee Donghyuck, did you hear my question?”

“I’m _answering_ it, hyung,” Donghyuck snapped. “You asked what else you could have done. And you said I would kill you if you did those things. I wouldn’t.”

“Well, yeah—no, not literally, but you would have been mad…”

“Hyung,” said Donghyuck, dead-serious. “You are so stupid. I _want_ you to do it.”

“Do—what?” asked Johnny, still confused. “Hyuck, seriously, I’m not following.”

Donghyuck looked up at him, unblinking. “I want you to kiss me.”

Johnny froze. He had been prepared for many things in his life; this admission had not been one of them. Emotions circled through his mind: confusion, shock, surprise—how was he meant to feel with such a confession from Donghyuck? But then it registered in his mind, and he said, completely awed: “So is that why—you’re mad at me?”

“Yes.” Donghyuck’s voice was steady, but colour was blooming in the apple of his cheeks; the picture of it was as pink and pretty as the cherry blossoms he had once seen in Jeju Island. He could not help but reach out and brush his hands across Donghyuck’s face, and it was then that the problem unfurled further. Donghyuck’s eyes flashed bright, and he said: “Hyung, why didn’t you kiss me properly earlier?”

“In front of everyone?” murmured Johnny. He was imagining the scene like a movie in his head, where everyone else was the crew and they were the main actors. In his head Mark shouted _Action!_ and Donghyuck approached; the pepero stick was wrapped around his lips. He beckoned at Johnny, who was consumed by whatever it was—the long-forgotten taste of chocolate, or Donghyuck’s carefree expression—and moved ever-so-slightly to nip at the stick. One bite, two bites, three—but before he could bridge that one-inch gap someone yelled _CUT_ and the moment was over. “Oh, Hyuck,” he said, unable to stop himself from chuckling, “you wanted me to kiss you—in front of all the staff, the crew, and the rest of the members?”

“No,” said Donghyuck. Then, “Yes. Well. I don’t know. I just want to… I want to be—”

“...Kissed?”

_“Yes,”_ breathed Donghyuck. To have Johnny say it out loud seemed an epiphany for him, and with that knowledge he started to demand: “Kiss me—won’t you do it? Kiss me—hyung, don’t you think you should kiss me?”

Johnny traced his fingers down the soft curve of Donghyuck’s cheekbones. “Tell me,” he said, “why should I?”

“Because I deserve it.” 

“Oh!” exclaimed Johnny, bemused, “and who told you that?”

“I,” said Donghyuck, “decided it for myself. I deserve to be kissed; so do you. And if you kiss me, then, I could kiss you too. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“To be—deserved?”

“To be kissed. Everyone should be kissed if they want it. And I want it.”

“How do you know that I want it?”

Donghyuck was blinking up at him. His eyes, wide-open, were speckled with light. They shone into him with the force of something magnetic, or perhaps magical. Witchcraft, Johnny supposed. “Do you not?”

His eyes… were they incorporeal? Somehow they felt that way, with how brightly they shone. Light wasn’t corporeal, no—Johnny had learned that in school before. It was a form of energy. But it was tied to Donghyuck’s small body—matter. Yet to be pinned with that bright gaze, exposed by such force, made it feel too otherworldly to be real. 

“Hyung, you…” He cut off, then, to climb into Johnny’s lap. Settling down with a quiet sigh, he said: “You do, don’t you?”

Johnny’s hands reached instinctively to his waist. He looked up at Donghyuck, and found himself unable to look away, focused on every detail on his face. The soft fluttering of his eyelashes, the moles that dotted his cheekbones, the soft curve of his nose. His eyes, ever-alight. His mouth was red with lip gloss, and Johnny wanted to kiss it until that red bloomed deeper. “Ah, baby,” he said. The endearment had slipped out on accident; yet it still felt natural. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Kiss me… kiss me,” repeated Donghyuck, that same unbroken mantra. “Kiss me, that’s what you can do.”

His hands were on Johnny’s chest now, his face above him. And light shone overhead like a cloudless sky; this was how it felt to have Donghyuck so warm and soft atop him. So Johnny could only lean in, and he heard himself saying: “Okay, okay, baby, I will,” and thereupon Donghyuck’s pleased murmur. And then the kiss, transmuted from the murmur out of which it had grown. And then the light again, an abundance of it, unstuttering in Donghyuck’s face, cheeks, nose, eyes. And thereafter, the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> "So I will not ask you where you came from   
>  I would not ask and neither would you   
>  Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips   
>  We should just kiss like real people do."   
>  _-Like Real People Do, Hozier_   
> 


End file.
